Impact of COVID-19 on Quality of Life of Medical Students and its Relationship with Resilience

Sudhir Raman Parajuli; Varsha Manandhar

Sudhir Raman Parajuli Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Pokhara, Nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4987-4054
Varsha Manandhar varsha.manandhar@manipalpokhara.edu.np https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3788-3794

Keywords: COVID-19; QoL; Resilience; Students.

Abstract

Introduction: Quality of life (QoL) is a concept designed to measure the overall well-being of an individual or population, encompassing both positive and negative aspects of their existence at a particular moment in time. Various stressors impact quality, and any unforeseen pandemic can alter this among medical students too. Resilience is an individual capacity to bounce back from this type of event. This study tries to find the impact of COVID-19 among medical students regarding quality of life and their resilience.

Methods: All 379 consenting medical students of Manipal College of Medical Sciences were included in the study. QoL was measured using the World Health Organization Quality of Life - Brief version (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire, and resilience was measured by Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 10 Item (CD-RISC-10). SPSS ver. 16.0 was used for calculation of descriptive statistics and to find the association between dependent and independent variables.

Results: The total score for QoL ranged from 47 to 125 with the mean and standard deviation score being 90.56 ± 13.70. Among the individual domains, physical domain had the highest mean score of 65.42 ± 15.207, while psychological domain had the lowest mean score of 59.34 ± 16.92. Self-reported mean resilience score was 25.81 ± 6.66.

Conclusions: Overall QoL of the students was found to be good. COVID-19 was found to affect psychological well-being in the medical students more than other domains of quality of life. Students with high resilience were found to have better quality of life.